Kevin Nolan hailed for doing 'wonderful job' at Cobblers by League One counterpart

Burton are 19th in League One after drawing 2-2 with fourth-placed Stevenage on Saturday and Bowyer wants his team to kick on again as the second half of the season approaches, starting on Boxing Day.

He said: "I went to watch Northampton against Wimbledon on Friday night and that’s going to be an unbelievably difficult game. I think they went 10th in the league after that game and the manager there is doing a wonderful job.

"We fully know what to expect but what we have to do now is push on and step on even further. The character and what we’re building here is special. We did a non-football exercise with the players last week about their lives. What they shared and how they shared it was incredible. It was one of my best days as a manager and it was a privilege to be part of it.

"We now have to keep pushing. I don’t want a mentality of going to the team third, fourth, fifth in the league and getting a point and being happy with that. We need to push ourselves more than that.

"I thought we were the better team against Stevenage and deserved at least a point. We were terrific in the first half, scored a wonderful goal and had chances to score more on the counter.

"It was really frustrating to concede two poor goals after half-time but the players stepped up after that and to be honest I’m disappointed to have gone to the team third in the league and come away with only a point.”